


Men

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft and Lestrade through Anthea's eyes. </p><p>This is short, sweet, and being frantically tucked in between Real Life commitments. Work is going well, but keeping me busy. God willing...well. I do think I will get to Time and Memory this weekend. Please God....</p><p>Meanwhile I hungered and thirsted to write this, small and quiet as it is. Hope you like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men

Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade: Anthea had worked with both for years. She hadn’t known them at the start, in their first months together—well before Lestrade had been seconded to MI6 and tasked with babysitting Mycroft’s erratic, stubborn, damaged, brilliant little brother. She had, however, worked beside them in the years since, on missions that had gone so pear-shaped they deserved shelf-space at the green grocer’s. She’d served as go-between, knitting Mycroft, Lestrade, and Sherlock together when they needed to be witnessed in separate places doing clearly distinct and unconnected things.

She’d made the two men enough cups of tea she could do it in her sleep: when the two were together she usually brewed up an insulated pitcher of Assam, slipping nimbly between Mycroft’s fondness for a fruity estate Ceylon and Lestrade’s inclination for a fierce Irish Breakfast. Mycroft took his black—one more sacrifice to his waistline. Lestrade dumped in half a cow and most of a sugar plantation, but, as he pointed out, he spent a lot of his time on foot, in the field, either for his Met cases or for his MI5 anti-terrorist detail: he worked it off, especially as little things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner were not reliable in his life.

She knew the exact sort of sly, elegant double-entendre that would light sparkles in Mycroft’s eyes and summon up that rare, precious grin. She knew the far more bawdy, nudge-nudge-wink-wink that could trip Lestrade into rolling, thunderous guffaws, face split by a brilliant smile and eyes squeezed nearly shut with laughter, seeping merry tears.

She knew when they were too tired to realize it was time to quit for the night. She knew when they needed to work apart because one more minute together and there would be blood on the floor of Mycroft’s office. Or, conversely, when they needed to work apart because in one more minute they’d be the ones on the floor, and blood would not be the critical bodily fluid exchanged…

Yes. She knew that, too, though they were discreet and every bit as secretive as their shared profession would suggest. She’d seen the potential during the years before Lestrade’s divorce. She’d suspected that they’d even crossed over that line a time or two before the final break, and suffered the guilt afterward, unsure how much of their own adulterous time had added to the dysfunctions of an already shaky marriage.

She’d dealt with them as they muddled their incoherent, male way through whatever the hell it was they had now.

They were not, in her opinion, exceptionally talented at the True Love thing. Oh, they had the connection, the desire, the intensity, and they were one hell of a good team. But they were neither of them good at vulnerability—not even Lestrade, whose apparent easy-going ways hid far more than he ever revealed. They were neither of them good at giving up independence.

The thing she noticed about them most, that colored everything else, was the profound sense when they were together that they were _men._ Adult men, in every admirable sense. They were all the cultural triggers of the Great British Male at his finest. Both private. Both reserved—though Mycroft covered it with glib, diplomatic schmarm and Lestrade covered it as completely with glib, laddish charm and swagger. They were both responsible—so much so that she occasionally had to resort to direct threats to get them to give up long enough to take care of their own health.

They stood tall. Their eyes were sharp, watching…watching…endlessly watching: two trained agents, always aware, always alert. They were protective. They were…kind.

They weren’t boys. They weren’t effeminate: even Mycroft, with his dapper-dandy love of the costume and pomp of his formal professional camouflage, avoided any odor of girlishness. He was a man who would appeal to people who liked _men…_ as the regular resignation on the part of female suitors made clear.

They were two very different men, she thought. Mycroft like an exquisite, hand-forged Damascus rapier—the kind with watermark ripples from the folding of the steel; the kind with fancy etching along the spine of the blade and a glorious, [elegant hilt](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Rapi%C3%A8re_expos%C3%A9e_au_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chillon%2C_Suisse.jpg/1024px-Rapi%C3%A8re_expos%C3%A9e_au_Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chillon%2C_Suisse.jpg) wound around with tendrils of protective steel. Mycroft would have made a fantastic Cavalier, in Anthea’s opinion. Or an Elizabethan privateer: a Drake, or a Raleigh. She could see him in his cape and boots, in his velvet and lace, words as sharp as his sword piercing hearts and souls.

Lestrade, now—another sort of man, but no less imposing in his way. To Anthea he begged for the role of Arthur: dear, loving, valiant, dedicated Arthur. She thought she was probably influenced by White’s Arthur—the young Wart who is Once and Future King, never far from his roots as a humble, “common” squire, with no family and no patrimony. She could imagine Lestrade, trapped between love and friendship and politics and hope and fear and shame, strangling on the mess of Lancelot and Guinivere and Morgan and Morgause and Mordred. Valiant and honorable and kind as the day is long—and not stupid, by any stretch of the imagination.

That was what she thought that evening, as they waited together for Moriarty to strike. Mycroft sat, as ever, behind his desk, contained and controlled, eyes watching the screen of his computer unblinking. Lestrade stood in front of the window, his overcoat hanging loosely, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, staring out at the city he protected daily.

“We’ve evacuated the likely sites,” he said, eyes tracing the House of Parliament.

“Yes,” Mycroft agreed, fingers flicking the images on a tablet screen. “Yes—and closed down the trains and the Tube.”

“We can’t do that forever.”

“No.”

“Do you think he’ll strike?”

Mycroft didn’t answer. There really was no need, Anthea thought. They both knew that, with Moriarty, he’d do what he chose, and what he chose would always come at an unbearably high price.

“I should be out there.”

“No,” Mycroft said, firmly. “You should not. You’re not a beat-cop, Lestrade. Not any more. You’re not bomb squad. You’ve already done the street work you should do this time out. Now we wait and see if our joint efforts lead to anything.”

Lestrade nodded, but that regal head seemed heavy, his shoulders hunched. A smart Cavalier would stand and let his enemies come to him—and he’d poniard every last one of them, while spouting rhymed couplets. An Arthur, though, wanted to go to the enemy—and bash him over the head and have done with, and to hell with fancy speeches.

Mycroft met Anthea’s eye. “Tea?” he said, his voice silk and linen—civil and refined.

She nodded. “Strong and black?”

“For me. Milk and—“

“Milk and tons of sugar for Mr. Lestrade,” Anthea said, smiling. “I’ll continue to monitor our teams in the field. I’ll let you know the minute we have any firm news."

“Keep them on their toes,” Lestrade growled, turning to her. “Don’t let them get cocky. The bastard’s out there.”

She nodded. “I know, sir.”

He sighed. “Sorry. I know you do. Not my place to give you orders in any case.”

He was right—but she didn’t mind. As she left she heard him say to Mycroft, “She’s one of your best, you know.”

She didn’t need to hear Mycroft’s agreement. She knew she was where she was because she was, in Mycroft’s eyes, his apprentice. The best of his best, making tea and fetching biscuits only to the degree it tricked people into missing her brilliance and mistaking her actual rank and authority.

She brewed the tea, and came back in carrying the tray. One thermal carafe. One plate of shortbread fingers. Three mugs. “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked, knowing the answer.

Mycroft nodded and gestured to a free chair.

The three sat together, then, in the dim room, Mycroft focused on his tablet and his laptop, Anthea in constant interface with the teams in the field, her hands and eyes seldom leaving the Blackberry, Lestrade staring meditatively out the window.

There was a dull roll of thunder, and the sullen flash of red and bronze along the skyline.

“St. Paul’s,” Lestrade said, not needing to check. He knew his city. He knew his skyline.

“Yes,” Anthea said. “but—Baker team thinks they've caught Moriarty himself.”

“Good,” Lestrade said. “Kill the bastard.”

Anthea and Mycroft exchanged silent glances. Mycroft shook his head slightly, a near-microscopic gesture. She nodded back, understanding. Tempting as it was, they wanted Moriarty alive.

She drained her cup. “I’m going to my own office, now,” she said. “I’ll do better managing this there. No distractions.”

She walked across the room, but paused to look back. She smiled slightly, loving the view.

Two men: two heroes of a very British make and mold. Lestrade stared out the window still, Arthur shaken and worn. But at his elbow his lordly Cavalier had come to stand. Mycroft had rested one hand on Lestrade’s shoulder.

That was all. No more. A single, silent gesture—as reserved and private as those two men. But knowing they were there, those two, delighted Anthea’s heart.

There was plenty of room in the world for boys, she thought. Boys and girls. Give her women and men, though.

She smiled, and closed the door on her two heroes.


End file.
